


Grace

by ninja19



Series: The Devil's Tears [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 9x01 coda, 9x09 fix, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, basically Lucifer kicks Gadreel's ass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 20:53:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninja19/pseuds/ninja19
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucifer is under the stars, staring agape at the sky as the purely impossible happens, when he feels it. A sharp pull, and then nothing. Complete disconnection.</p><p>Sam, he thinks, the catastrophe of every angel falling to earth before his eyes and his own grace weakening as a result temporarily forgotten. If he can’t feel Sam anymore, then…</p><p>No. Lucifer shuts his eyes and tries to focus. He pours every inch of angelic concentration he possesses into finding that bond again. Sam is not dead. Cannot be dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grace

Lucifer is under the stars, staring agape at the sky as the purely impossible happens, when he feels it. A sharp pull, and then nothing. Complete disconnection.

 _Sam_ , he thinks, the catastrophe of every angel falling to earth before his eyes and his own grace weakening as a result temporarily forgotten. If he can’t feel Sam anymore, then…

 _No._ Lucifer shuts his eyes and tries to focus. He pours every inch of angelic concentration he possesses into finding that bond again. _Sam is not dead. Cannot be dead._

A tiny, almost unnoticeable spark lights at the back of his mind and he’s overcome with relief. He still has time.

He’s in that – mercifully empty – hospital room before you can say _fallen angel_ and sits in the chair next to Sam’s bedside. He presses a palm to Sam’s forehead and grasps his hand with his other. Sam didn’t complete the trials. Almost, but not quite. Sam’s soul is slipping away under his fingertips and, in Lucifer’s weakened state, he’s not sure he can do much to prevent it.

A wave of grief courses through Lucifer and he bows his head over Sam’s body. There’s an uncomfortable lump in his throat and his eyes are stinging and, heavens, he thinks he might actually be crying. He briefly wonders if the angels falling has somehow cut him off from the host even more than before. Perhaps his grace is slipping away. Perhaps he’s becoming human.

In this desolate hospital room, with Sam’s life slipping through his fingers, he doesn’t care.

“Why didn’t you listen to me? You knew…” Lucifer says, his voice thick. His stomach twists uncomfortably as he realises Sam won’t be able to hear him. He’s too far gone. Sam won’t hear him ever again, and he won’t hear Sam, or see his smile, or wrap him in his arms as if that somehow makes up for missing the majority of his life, for not being able to protect him from the horrors he’s witnessed in his young life.

He can’t protect him now, either.

There’s a strangled choking noise, and Lucifer vaguely realises the sound is coming from him. It’s ridiculous, really, that humans show their emotions in such pitiful ways. No one is much use to anyone if they’re sobbing on the floor, consumed by grief, unable to think straight.

Lucifer blinks. Perhaps there is something he can do to save Sam. With his grace slipping, he’s not sure, but yes, it could work. The real question is whether he would risk it for Sam.

He nods, resolute. He would do anything for Sam.

Before he can move, he hears the safety of a gun click before he feels the cold barrel being pushed against his skull. A rough, “What the _fuck?”_ cuts through the silence of the room.

Lucifer sighs. “Dean.”

Another click as a bullet slides into position, ready to be fired. “Get your hands off my brother.” Lucifer complies, wincing a little as his connection with Sam diminishes to almost nothing once again. When he first fell, the silence in his mind had been deafening. Millennia of being able to hear every one of his brothers and sisters voices, only to be cut away to nothing. It had been excruciating. Maddening. The isolation had near drove him insane.

But when Sam had been born, a single solitary line had opened in his mind once again. It was nowhere near as powerful as it had been with his angelic siblings, and it wasn’t so much conversation as just being aware of a presence, but it had been bliss. To know his vessel was alive, to be aware off another being, human or no, had been what kept him going in the Cage.

Now, with that one line almost severed, it is incomparably, undeniably worse than when he was cast down.

“What is this, some kind of Apocalypse Returns crap?” Dean demands. Lucifer raises his hands and rises up slowly, turning to look Dean in the eye. Dean is aiming the gun at him with his left hand, an angel blade in his right. “Because you know what, this ain’t exactly the best time.”

“Dean –”

“No, you listen to me, you son of a bitch! My brother is _fucking dying,_ you understand?” Dean’s laugh is cold, bitter. “No, of course you _fucking don’t._ You just want to wear Sam like a meatsuit, right? Figured you’d swoop in here when he’s at his weakest, huh? Bet you don’t need consent when he’s comatose –”

“Dean,” Lucifer cuts in, and he’s ashamed of the way his voice cracks. He sounds desperate, broken. “Dean, please. I – I can save him.”

Dean’s gun lowers slightly, but his eyes haven’t lost any of their determination. “How?” is all he says, jaw clenched.

“My grace is weakening, but if – if I cut it out and put it in Sam., it would find his soul, bring it back to his body, heal him. My grace would be burned up in the process.”

Dean doesn’t look convinced. “Then what happens to you?”

Lucifer shrugs. “I would become human. Take over this vessel as my own body. There’s no soul in here anyway.”

Dean drops the gun, but this time the blade is at Lucifer’s throat instead. “Nope,” Dean says, “not buying it. You’re telling me you would let yourself become human – human, the species you despise – to save my brother, who will be no use to you when human? Doesn’t add up.”

Lucifer exhales sharply. “Did you ever think that perhaps I view Sam as more than a vessel? Becoming human is best case scenario, I would most likely die.”

Dean shakes his head. “No. You’re lying. This is just some way for you to get inside his skin again. You’re not the self-sacrifice type. I won’t let you near him.”

“I don’t lie, Dean,” Lucifer says sadly. The bond between him and Sam grows even weaker. He can hardly feel it now. It’s torture, and it’s nothing compared to what’s to come.

Dean grits his teeth. “Leave, or God help me I will shove this blade through your throat.”

Lucifer looks Dean in the eye, his face setting in determination. “Do it.”

To his surprise, Dean recoils in horror. “What?”

Lucifer shrugs. “I won’t have anything when Sam dies. Anything. You’d be doing me a service.”

Dean comprehends him for a few moments, before lowering his blade and stepping away from him. “You’re a mess, Lucifer,” he says, eyes wide. “Fifty shades of fucked up, and that’s coming from me. I hope to God I never see you again.” With that, he turns his back and goes back to Sam’s bedside.

Lucifer finds himself somewhere quiet, and he waits for the inevitable, holding on to that shadow of a bond.

 

* * *

 

The next time Lucifer sees Dean, he’s at the bottom of a whisky bottle with a dead prophet under a sheet in the next room.

Lucifer crouches in front Dean, grabbing him by the collar. He is ridiculously intoxicated. “Dean?”

“Aw hell,” Dean slurs. “I hope I’m seeing things, ‘cause no offense but you’re the last person I wanna see right now.”

“What happened?” Lucifer demands. The room is a mess. He came because the bond with Sam had almost died out completely, but _months_ later than he was expecting. It had actually gotten stronger for a while, and Lucifer had dared to hope.

“Not-Zeke k-killed Kevin, and took Sam, and –”

 “Not-Zeke?”

Dean laughs. “I, uh, at the hospital – did something stupid – really stupid, even for me. Angel named Ezekiel, said he’d fix up Sam, so I let him, except he wasn’t Zeke, and now Kevin’s dead and S-Sam’s g-gone.” Tears run down the hunter’s face, but Lucifer is in no mood for sympathy.

“Why has he taken Sam?” When Dean doesn’t answer, he shakes him roughly. “Dean!”

Dean’s voice is a whisper. “He’s p-possessing him…”

White-hot rage burns through Lucifer, and he punches Dean with all his strength. His jaw breaks under Lucifer’s fist. “You let another angel possess _my vessel?”_

Dean grins through bloody teeth. “Thought he was more than your vessel?” Lucifer punches him again.

“That is _not_ the point! You let a stranger, an angel you don’t know, don’t trust, possess your brother? _Are you insane?”_

Dean looks at him with sad eyes. “I had nothing, no choice. I was desperate.”

“ _You had me!_ You should have let me heal him! _”_

“Yeah, no offense or nothin’ but you ain’t exactly the most trustworthy –” Lucifer growls and punches him again. It knocks him out cold.

Lucifer stands up, every inch of his being screaming _findSamfindSamfindSam._

As an afterthought, he goes back and brings the prophet to life; he figures it’s probably not wise to leave Dean alone in his current state. It would be a shame to save Sam and bring him back here to find his brother dead with alcohol poisoning. Luckily un-smoting someone doesn’t use up too much grace. Undoing human causes of death are more difficult.

The things he does for Sam Winchester.

 

* * *

 

Four days later, Lucifer hones in on Sam.

Whoever is possessing him is staying out of the angel war, hiding in a motel room at least 400 miles from the last angel death. Lucifer passed a lot of them on the way here. It’s strange, he thinks, that when angels are cast down their immediate reaction is to find a target to blame for all your misfortune.

Not that he can say much about that without being extremely hypocritical.

Lucifer’s grace is diminishing. The more he flies, the more he uses every bit of grace to find Sam, the more particles slip away into nothing.

If he can save Sam, he doesn’t care.

He’s been watching the motel room for hours now, making sure there aren’t any allies coming and going that he isn’t aware of. He’s not sure how many angels he can take on in this state and saving Sam is his priority, even if it means pacing the park across from the motel’s parking lot and grinding his teeth in frustration.

Darkness falls, and he moves. Doesn’t even pause when he gets to the door, instead blasting it out of the way with what little strength he has left.

He’s not prepared for the angel on the other side of the door.

Gadreel stands facing him, like he was waiting for Lucifer.

“Lucifer,” he says coldly, and Lucifer can’t help but notice how wrong Sam looks under Gadreel’s control; his posture is wrong, his expressions without emotion. Even his _voice_ is wrong somehow.

“Gadreel,” Lucifer says cheerfully. “Fancy seeing you here.” His eyes narrow and his tone sobers. “In _my_ vessel.”

“He is very strong,” Gadreel says mildly. “Comfortable.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you got out of him before I rip you to shreds,” Lucifer counters coolly.

Gadreel’s brow furrows in confusion. “I am healing him. If this is about the prophet –”

Lucifer has him pinned the wall in an instant, angel blade at his throat. “I don’t think you understand me, brother. I don’t care about the prophet. I don’t even care about Dean, although I suppose I will have to tolerate him. _But Sam is mine._ My _true_ vessel. You understand?” Gadreel nods hastily, and Lucifer allows himself a moment of smugness. He is still feared. “Now, I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing with his soul, but you’re going to stop, and I am going to heal him, and you are going to _leave._ Find another vessel. Don’t. I don’t care. Got it?”

Gadreel hesitates. “You said his soul. You don’t need a soul for a vessel.”

Lucifer pushes him further. “It so happens that the soul is the part I’m interested in.”

“But didn’t Dean… The soul is gone, Lucifer.”

“Funny thing about true vessels, Gadreel. I have a bond with Sam’s soul, and I can feel it, right here, right now.”

“That’s… impossible.”

“Brother, you’re boring me,” Lucifer says, “and I’m trying to work out why you’re still here.” He lazily slides his blade into Gadreel’s heart. There’s a burst of light, and the scorchmarks of ragged angel wings cover the wall. Sam’s body slumps to the floor, empty, and Lucifer winces. “Sorry, Sam.”

He works quickly, the fraying tendrils of his grace trying to split apart and disappear, and he grimaces as he forces his arm into his vessel’s body to gather them together. Lucifer grits his teeth as the burning sensation starts, but he’d known what to expect. Apparently being cast out of Heaven and falling from grace are pretty similar.

He bundles his grace together, and braces himself as he begins to pull it out of his chest. He feels like he’s being turned inside out, the flesh flayed from his bones, wings torn to shreds, and yet as long as he focuses on Sam’s lifeless face, he can carry on.

Eventually he is panting on the floor, holding an armful of grace, and it’s all he can do to roll over and push it into Sam’s chest, over the wound he made, before the pain of effectively ripping out his own heart and soul is too much and he blacks out.

 

* * *

 

“Luce? Lucifer!”

Someone’s shaking him. It’s unpleasant.

“Lucifer.”

He knows that voice.

His eyes crack open. The sudden brightness blinds him for a moment, but gradually things start to come into focus.

Like Sam’s face.

“Sam?” he attempts to croak out, before dissolving into a coughing fit. Sam laughs and pulls him up into a sitting position, thumping him on the back.

The coughing ceases, and Lucifer looks around. They’re still in the motel room. “I was unconscious?”

“Yeah, not for long, just ten minutes or so.” Lucifer nods. “I was awake, you know? When he thought I wasn’t there anymore he stopped trying to hide stuff from me. So, um, thanks. I know what you did.” Sam looks almost guilty.

“There was no other choice Sam. I’d do anything for you.”

Sam looks mildly uncomfortable, but he grins through it. “I’m glad it worked, at any rate. So, are you full human now or what?”

Lucifer runs a hand over his face. It feels different. More real. Not a vessel’s. _His._  “I believe so.”

Sam grimaces. “That’s gotta suck. I know you aren’t thrilled about our species.”

Lucifer covers Sam’s hand with his own. “I don’t know, I might be getting used to you all.” He smiles, and Sam smiles back before getting to his feet and pulling Lucifer with him.

“Come on, I’ll get us a car and some food. You hungry?”

“I don’t –” Lucifer’s stomach cuts him off with a loud grumble, and Sam grins. “I guess I am.”


End file.
